


quiet (like i like it)

by lindholms



Category: Hockey RPF, Real Person Fiction, Sports RPF, carolina hurricanes - Fandom
Genre: Don't yell at me, I'm Sorry, Infatuation, M/M, but it's for a reason, i cannot say that enough, idek what this is, this is Depressing trash, this is such a mess, vent fic, vent fic vent fic vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 10:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13785693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindholms/pseuds/lindholms
Summary: so much about noah was wrong. he was all rough edges and walls and bitterness. and haydn was so right. he was everything right that noah’s wrong was missing, and that infuriated noah. not because he was a guy, not even because he was his teammate. but because he justwas.someone meant something to noah now and he didn’t know how to handle it and that pissed him off.or, noah loses himself in haydn





	quiet (like i like it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hfleury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hfleury/gifts), [bicroft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicroft/gifts).



> I need to preface this fic with the fact that it took a lot of turns I didn't initially anticipate and I don't really know what happened to it. I can explain it better in the end notes, but just bear with me til then. sorry for this mess of emotions. 
> 
> {thank you to my dear [bicroft](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bicroft) for being the best beta ever. lowercase intended. title from anemone by slenderbodies.}

haydn had grown up in a busy family, alive with noise and chaos. he and his younger brother had never been told to use inside voices, the dogs were never scolded to stop barking, music always blared from some unknown corner of the house, and the voices echoing between the walls never ceased. haydn had always thrived in that environment. noise meant life. it made him feel surrounded. loved.

it made noah feel suffocated.

when haydn had spent the days of his youth outside with family, with yelling and singing and voices upon voices, noah had spent his hiding in whatever corner he could find when things got too loud.

he'd been an outgoing kid, he didn't dislike people or being social. but sometimes the sound of voices made his bones ache. he still remembered his mother telling him how rude he was, that no she wasn't going to stop talking to him, she was his mother and she had every right to ask him questions. _you're right_ , he'd wanted to tell her from behind his hands, _i know you're right. i don't understand either. this isn't my fault. please stop talking._ but all that would ever come out were the last three words, and they never did anything but hurt and anger their recipients.

noah outgrew lots of things as he got older. he stopped sleeping with a light on when he was seven (he figured out early on the scariest things didn't hide in the dark). he stopped chasing after his mom as she left for work when he was nine (he was too old to be so clingy, they said). he stopped trying to make friends at school when he was twelve (there were too many cruel words in public school). he stopped telling people what he wanted when he was fifteen (no one listened anyway). but he never outgrew that feeling. that unexplained, unpredictable tightness inside his chest, under his skin, in his head, that accompanied too many voices. the thing that sent him running for his room, a bathroom, a closet, his car, a corner, when his own voice couldn't work to tell someone to be quiet. nothing made him feel more powerless.

 

when he got drafted, when he came here to raleigh to be a part of something important, something real, for the first time in his life, he felt it. he felt it as he stood in that locker room for the first time, with too many eyes on him and too many thoughts he couldn't hear over the clamor in the room. his feet felt rooted to the floor, his legs like ghosts. he couldn't take his eyes off his stall. _HANIFIN_ seemed to scream at him. he sensed too much failure awaiting him between those letters.

he turned from his own name to silently scan the small space. there were too many voices and moving bodies around him, the room was a constant current of life and noise. noah swallowed. if he wanted to be in the NHL, he had to get control of himself. no hockey player deserving of something this huge could let it affect him like this.

he only recognized a few faces around him. rask and skinner were deep in conversation a foot away, aho and teravainen speaking softly to one another in the far corner (probably in finnish, despite the rules). no one seemed to be paying him any attention – except the kid hovering by the doorway across the room. noah didn’t know him yet, couldn’t put a name to the piercing blue eyes studying him, but he’d seen him several times. noah was pretty sure he was a rookie. maybe he could stick with him.

the way the boy watched him made noah feel nervous but not uneasy. his eyes were kind, and when he noticed noah meeting his gaze, his mouth turned up in a small half-smile. he turned away before noah could return it, and noah wondered what was so interesting about him that he’d caught the boy’s attention in the first place. probably that he looked like a scared lost puppy, standing there all pale skin and wide eyes like he was about to drop. noah pushed the thought out of his mind and instead focused on gauging the distance from the door to where he stood frozen in front of his locker.

everyone else’s eyes glided over, around, through him. he felt invisible, which was good. he needed to get out unnoticed and collect himself before everyone saw him standing there looking like a scared little kid and pitied him. and he was certain he could. until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

he jumped unnecessarily, turned too quickly. he felt dizzy. "woah, you okay, kid?" he recognized the man’s face, he was one of the older players. the goalie? he had kind eyes like the rookie, but they held much more experience, more confidence. his grip on noah’s shoulder loosened and he turned to shove something in his own locker. noah glanced up at the name above the stall – _WARD –_ and forced his lips into a smile. he cleared his throat, prayed his voice wouldn’t shake or crack. “oh yeah, just, uh...” he let his eyes dart around the room, do a quick scan of anyone listening. no one was. “taking it all in.” another voice rose above the clamor on his other side, along with more shuffling in the locker. “he’s fine, wardo, just psyched for his first practice, right hanny?” the man patted his other shoulder lightly, gave him a reassuring nod before he walked off. noah remembered his name – williams.

“more like pissing himself,” came a new voice, from the middle of the room. noah found the source – a dark-haired guy, younger than ward and williams but still older than noah, wearing a blank expression and dark eyes. noah felt the slightest urge to throttle him. a few snickers followed the remark, someone scolded the guy laughingly – _leave the kid alone, faulker_ – and noah wanted to disappear but he made himself do what he always did best and laughed it off. everyone dropped it, started filtering out of the locker room then, and noah felt more alone than he had five minutes ago.

but before he turned back around, blue eyes found him from the other side of the locker room, and the boy wasn't laughing. he only wore that same small smile, but it wasn't amused. noah realized it was the quietest form of reassurance the boy could give him, and he returned it, the feeling beginning to return to his legs. the rookie slipped out of the room alongside williams without a word, and noah scrambled to not be the last to leave.

 

after noah’s first goal, the guys had insisted on going out. the fact that they cared enough about a rookie to celebrate meant a lot, but he was exhausted and the mere thought of a club set his nerves on edge. though as it turned out, ironically enough, a small bright room full of people meant to be his teammates, his friends, was more terrifying than a place like this. he oddly found a kind of peace after half an hour or so, settled into the corner, hidden in the dark where he could watch his teammates make fools of themselves in solitude. aside from the occasional drunken shoulder pat or congratulations, they left noah alone for the most part.

except one. in the short time noah had been on the team, he’d learned pretty quickly that haydn liked his company. why, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t in any position to be questioning the one solid friendship he’d managed to make so far. and there was worse than company than someone who never failed to make him smile. so when haydn slipped into the booth beside him, subtly handed him a drink, he didn’t protest. the corner of his mouth turned up in an amused half-smile, “what’s this?”

haydn swallowed the last of his own, turned to noah with a slightly hazy smile but still seemed to have his wits about him, more or less. “s’a drink, hanny,” he nudged him with a shoulder, turned his gaze back on the room.

noah exhaled a laugh, “yeah, i know it’s a drink, buddy,” nudged him back, which was apparently highly amusing to haydn’s intoxicated mind, “i mean why?”

haydn’s smile was beautifully bright. he bit his lip and watched noah so intently for a moment, noah thought maybe he’d forgotten to answer his question. the longer haydn watched him, the more nervous noah grew. he begrudgingly broke the stare, letting his gaze drop to the drink in his hands.

haydn reached over and poked him in the nose, eliciting a surprised jump from noah. “because you’re a _baby_ ,” noah felt his skin heat, “and you can’t buy one.” haydn propped an elbow on the back of the booth and leaned into his hand, watching noah with that same blissful smile.

noah had been wrong, this kid was clearly trashed. “yeah, so are you,” noah retorted, “where’d _you_ get one?” haydn only sipped his own, shrugged.

“just take it. you deserve it, after tonight.”

noah blinked at him for a moment, returned his gaze to the drink, prayed it was too dark for haydn to see the blush rising up. “i—you didn’t have to, um—” his stammering was cut short by haydn’s laugh. it was music, and noah would’ve much rather listened to it for the rest of the night than to what was currently blaring over the speakers in the club. “and you need a drink.” he suddenly seemed a bit more serious, still studying noah with an intensity the younger boy thought even haydn wouldn’t be able to uphold sober. 

noah watched him back. “do i?”

haydn blinked, gnawed thoughtfully on his lower lip for a second, sighed. “i'm not blind to it, you know.” noah swallowed hard, again considered the drink in his hand. whatever haydn was about to admit he knew about, noah thought maybe the older boy was right – he did need a drink.

haydn let him empty the glass before he continued. “i mean it’s probably partly because i went through the same thing, most rookies do. it’s terrifying being here for a while.” noah almost sighed in relief. what he’d been expecting (dreading) haydn to confess he wasn’t entirely sure, but this was fine. still surprising but fine. haydn didn’t seem to notice noah’s relief, kept talking. “but only for a while. it’ll get better. you _are_ a part of this team, you know.” haydn gave him the small, reassuring smile he was more accustomed to. it’ll start to feel more like it soon.” noah thought it was awfully nice of him to say, considering haydn himself wasn’t even officially part of the team himself yet, had never even made a goal here.

noah felt that intensity again as haydn stared him down, not a stare of intimidation but of curiosity. he’d almost say admiringly, if he didn’t know any better. but noah just muttered a _thank you_ , so quiet he didn’t think haydn heard him. but the grin he got in response told him otherwise. noah toyed with the empty glass in his hand but kept his eyes trained on haydn, found it easier to hold his stare the more haydn smiled. “doesn’t really seem like anybody notices sometimes.”

haydn nodded, serious again. "yeah, the older guys especially don't always get it. i think our generation drew the short stick with the whole anxiety thing." they both breathed a laugh.

he was right though. and noah didn’t say it, but it was nice to hear the word in someone else’s voice besides his own for a change. it gave him a sense of justification, like he wasn’t just making up excuses anymore. it wasn't something he liked to talk about. but something in haydn's expression (in _haydn_ ) made him feel braver.

he thought he might be starting to work up the courage to open up a little more. but a _hannyyyyyy!_ followed by the graceful appearance of an incredibly drunk mcginn took the two out of the moment. haydn laughed at the idiot stumbling into the booth on noah’s other side, nearly spilling his drink (like he really needed another one) on noah’s shirt. haydn patted noah’s leg before slipping out wordlessly. noah ignored brock’s drunken rambling and watched his teammate go, relishing the missing weight of haydn’s hand on his thigh.

 

haydn’s understanding was typically enough to bring noah down. he knew the older boy didn’t understand exactly what the issue was, but he’d learned enough of noah to recognize it when it hit and he more or less knew what to do. no matter where they were, locker room, practice, bench, haydn understood when noah needed quiet reassurance. he never brought any attention to it, just stood a bit closer, talked softly, kept his patience. which was more than anyone else had ever offered him, so though it seemed trivial, it held a significant weight to noah.

noah wasn’t sure what signs he showed, if he paled, if he stared off blankly like a psych patient – maybe haydn just knew him well enough by now to read him. considering they’d only been playing together on and off for 8 months, that was impressive. noah couldn’t think of anyone else who’d ever bothered to get to know him that well in such a short time. he didn’t normally let people try. but haydn was persistent.

even when he was back in charlotte, haydn texted him every now and then to check on him. it made noah feel something strange, something different and warm, and he couldn’t tell if he liked the feeling or not. he couldn’t figure haydn out, and that frustrated him. but his frustration melted when haydn smiled at him.

stupid smile. stupid haydn. stupid _feeling_.

when sebastian found him, noah was hidden away in the empty locker room, everyone else long gone, shoving his belongings forcefully into his bag and ignoring his thoughts.

“noah?” he didn’t have to look up to recognize the thick finnish accent clinging to his name.

“yeah, seb, what’s up?” quiet footsteps answered, followed by the appearance of the younger boy on the bench beside him.

“you seem…” he searched for the word, and noah simultaneously felt for him and swallowed a laugh. “…angry.” seb finished with a self-assured nod, proud of the five-letter word.

 _astute observation, sepe._ “do i?” he feigned ignorance, focused his gaze on the contents of his bag, pretended a zipper was stuck.

seb considered the rhetorical question seriously for a second.

“ah… yes.”

noah hid his smile. “why do i seem angry, seb?”

“i thought you’d tell me,” came the quiet reply. noah blinked down at his bag. he didn’t have an answer for his teammate. or he did, but it wasn’t one he felt much like sharing.

noah sighed through his nose, sat up to meet seb’s eyes. “just…” he shook his head, searching for his own words. “a confusing situation. i’m good, don’t worry about me, buddy,” he patted sebastian’s shoulder, hoped he was convincing.

seb watched him cautiously. the kid looked like a chihuahua, the serious set of his lips and untrusting narrow eyes. “you don’t seem so good.” noah blew out another sigh, let his hand fall off seb’s shoulder. he wasn’t letting this go without a real answer.

fine then. “okay,” noah returned his focus to his hands, bothered a hangnail. “it’s just a friend issue, i can’t read him and i’m annoyed by that. but it’s nothing serious, just me being moody. like always.” the joke didn’t land. something noah had learned in his time here was that finns could be unbelievably serious-minded.

“but why can’t you read him?”

noah weighed his words. “he, uh…” he reached down and untwisted the top of his water bottle, unsure of what to follow with.

seb studied him thoughtfully as he drank. “is it haydn?”

noah choked and sputtered. “ _what?_ ”

seb blinked, startled. noah stared at him incredulously, motioned for him to explain himself. seb only shrugged, like it was the simplest conclusion, “he’s your best friend.”

“okay, he’s not my best friend, he’s my teammate, just like you,” he wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. _damn intuitive finns._ seb wore a small amused smile. “he’s your best friend here,” he said matter-of-factly, no room for argument. noah fought the urge to roll his eyes. what was with the foreigners on this team, always in everybody’s personal life? elias had grilled him for 20 minutes yesterday about his weekend plans, and rask had all but demanded a thesis on why he couldn’t come over and play fifa with them. it was like second grade again, but this time people wanted to be his friend. noah wasn’t sure which one was more irritating.

“fine, sure. but seb-“

“you like him, don’t you?”

noah froze, his hand halfway to his bag to return the water bottle so he could make a quick escape. “okay, i don’t wanna talk about this anymore.” had he unknowingly gotten a tattoo across his forehead that read _i might be gay for my teammate, ask me about it, won’t you?_

he stood abruptly, slung his bag over his shoulder.

“noah-“

“seb, i know you mean well, but leave it alone.” he walked out before the boy could say anymore. a pang of guilt stung beneath his chest at being so cold with sebastian. it was like kicking a puppy. but he couldn’t even begin to fathom how seb had come to that conclusion, let alone confirm or deny it. his feet carried him the memorized path out to the parking lot, his mind too muddled to do the leading.

once he sat in his car, hands white-knuckled gripping the wheel, he made himself breathe. in and out, like haydn made him do after he screwed up a game. he didn’t wanna think about haydn. not that that would stop him.

he started for the radio, but his hand faltered in mid-air. music wouldn’t do anything but set his nerves on edge right now. the only sound that he wanted was one voice, and he wasn’t about to call it and explain why he was so upset.

but his fingers disobeyed him anyway, shook as they punched in the number and held the phone to his ear. he gnawed at his lip. bad habit, haydn gave him a hard time for it. he bit down harder to spite him.

the line trilled twice, three times, before it clicked and haydn’s groggy voice answered, “noah?”

noah blinked at the steering wheel, one hand still grasping the side. “yeah?” he sounded so unsure, even to himself. he glanced at the time, the bright green numbers that read _5:12_.

“what’s up, you good?” haydn sounded half-asleep.

noah let himself smile, “dude, it’s 5pm, are you sleeping?”

haydn’s half-hearted laugh answered, followed by a yawn. “maybe. I’ve been at practice all morning – don’t change the subject.” noah swallowed, flipped through images in his head of what haydn might look like right now. was he in bed? the couch? was his hair a wreck? was he wearing a shirt?

noah shook his head, rubbed his eyes with a fist, “uh, yeah, i just, um-” how did he tell him all he wanted was to sit there and listen to him breathe? just know he was there?

“i just wanted to check in. hear you.” the last bit slipped out before he could process it. _well that was nice and gay, noah, good going._

“oh,” haydn’s voice was quieter. “okay.”

silence. noah tapped the steering wheel impatiently. _just spit it out, get what you want, and go home and sleep so you can forget it happened_.

“can we just…” speaking these words was like pulling teeth, they sounded pathetic before he even voiced them. “…sit here?”

nothing for a second, two. “like not talk?”

noah let his head fall against the window, gritted his teeth. “mmhmm.”

“of course,” haydn murmured, “i’m probably too tired to make sense anyway,” a small laugh. noah sighed relief, thankful for haydn’s unfailing ability to make noah feel, if anything, a bit less like an idiot.

he didn’t say anything else, and neither did the boy on the other end of the line. the only sound was haydn’s soft inhale and exhale, barely audible but enough. noah could practically see his chest rising and falling, wondered what it’d be like to watch him fall asleep. or wake up. but that would involve things noah would never be a part of.

haydn was straight, wasn’t he? he had a girlfriend last year. but so did noah, and that didn’t seem to mean much. noah had stuck with that relationship for three years and never meant a second of it. it was something to do, to put behind him. he didn’t like to think about it, the way she’d cried when he’d finally gotten the courage to end it. when his conscience finally decided to make an appearance and say _enough_. not that she’d been an angel by any means, he was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one seeing the crack in her bedroom ceiling twice a week. but it was still wrong.

so much about noah was wrong. he was all rough edges and walls and bitterness. and haydn was so right. he was everything right that noah’s wrong was missing, and that infuriated noah. not because he was a guy, not even because he was his teammate. but because he just _was_. someone meant something to noah now and he didn’t know how to handle it and that pissed him off.

he let his focus drift from anger back to haydn’s breathing. soft, steady. he was probably asleep again. noah swallowed hard. was this weird? it wasn’t like haydn didn’t agree to it. but he was literally _listening_ to his best friend ( _dammit seb_ ) sleep. he was sitting here in a darkening parking lot, phone pressed to his ear like a lifeline, hanging onto the sound of another person, of _haydn_ , breathing.

he didn’t want to admit how much it put him at ease. and he would never admit that when he finally hung up and drove home and fell into bed with more self-loathing than he had the night before, he let himself imagine what it’d be like to find sleep in haydn’s bed rather than his own.

 

noah never talked to seb about haydn again. seb never brought it up again, never brought up much of anything to him anymore. not anything deep, anyway. noah never got the chance to apologize for snapping at him and soon his window closed and it would’ve been odd to bring it up after so long. he’d tried to make up for it though, made sure he talked to the kid more often and offered encouragement when needed (which seemed to be a lot, with the pressure seb carried), and they seemed okay. one of seb’s good qualities was that he didn’t appear to hold a grudge. noah figured he was just trying to be careful not to set him off again. which, again, made him feel guilty. but there was nothing he could do about it now. noah thought one of his qualities seemed to be missing his chance. and not just with seb.

haydn never brought up the phone call, or any of the ones that followed. and for that, noah was partly grateful. he didn’t want to look haydn in the eye and admit all the real reasons he kept calling just to breathe together, couldn’t admit it if he did want to. but haydn didn’t seem to mind. noah kept reminding himself of that every time he dialed his number, and in the hours after.

he’d begun to wonder if maybe there could be something. if maybe he could make haydn want him. or if maybe he already did. when his mind wasn’t constantly circling hockey, it was on the older boy. the older boy who wasn’t a rookie anymore (not that that stopped noah from calling him that just to annoy him, to get that smile that broke him in the best way possible.) they were both on this team now, they were a part of this together. they always had been, is what haydn would say. but it felt more real now, is what noah wouldn’t. it was better, he didn’t have to miss him anymore, watch him come and go. he could get out of bed every morning knowing that when he got to the arena, or got on a plane, there’d be blue eyes waiting for him. blue eyes that he knew, _he knew_ , he’d fallen too far and too deep for without any real reason to. every piece of him told him this wasn’t smart, every piece told him it wasn’t logical. but some twisted piece in his heart told him to do it anyway. just to see. and just like with anything else noah ever did, he listened to that piece over everything else.

he listened to it when haydn stood too close to him. (so much closer than he ever stood to the other guys. wasn’t it?) he let it drown out his fear when he caught himself thinking of things he shouldn’t. it swayed him when he tried to push the boy out of his mind. it screamed at him when he tried to look for someone else. and he could never _not_ listen.

was this what addiction felt like? knowing something is bad for you, will only lead to hurt, and pulling away only for it to claw its way back to you? noah knew he was being dramatic, but he didn’t care. nothing had ever consumed him like haydn, and he’d never wanted anything to.

so when haydn invited him over after practice, to play fifa, get dinner, _just hang_ – he listened.

 

noah wasn't normally one to panic. he didn’t let things get to him, and certainly not people. so this was new, this awful anticipation he had stuck in his throat. his fingers drummed involuntarily on his jeans, foot tapping unceasingly against the floor of haydn’s car.

only the sound of haydn’s laugh brought noah out of his head, “you scared to see my apartment, hanny?” noah exhaled a laugh, and with it, he hoped, some of his nerves. “i promise it’s clean, you’re not gonna get a disease or anything.” he followed up with that blinding smile, and noah couldn’t keep himself from returning it.

haydn was true to his word, his apartment was definitely not the wreck noah’s was. it was minimalistic, a couch, a TV set on a low table, xbox and a couple controllers strewn between. a few decorative pictures in various spots on the wall (came with the place, haydn claimed) and something that was perhaps a t-shirt tossed over a chair in the corner? nothing that would be featured in a magazine anytime soon, but it was quite the step-up from what greeted noah every night. and he told haydn so, much to the older boy’s amusement.

haydn dropped onto the couch, and noah followed suit. he was suddenly very aware of the fact that he and haydn were alone (in an apartment, nonetheless) for the first time. he didn’t know what to do with his hands, but before he figured it out, haydn was shoving an xbox controller into them. he muttered his thanks, which held more relief than haydn realized. this was not a situation noah had envisioned himself being in anytime soon. sure, they were close, but they were no teuvo and seb just yet. would they be?

“you hungry?” haydn’s voice brought noah back to the tiny room, to the boy next to him.

he stared down at the plastic controller in his hands, toyed with it, “uh, no, i’m good right now, actually.” haydn just nodded, set up the game. noah was grateful for that, for a plan. if haydn had just expected him to sit here and talk, he wouldn’t have been much to work with. which was odd, considering they’d spent so much time together. noah had told haydn things his own brother hadn’t heard, and probably wouldn’t. but there was something about the apartment, about the light, about the way haydn looked sitting here, in his own natural habitat, so relaxed, even with noah here – it was incredible and unsettling all at once. and very different from what they normally did.

but once haydn virtually demolished him a couple times, noah began to ease into things. the more he laughed, the more he relaxed and the more haydn joked around, and the cycle continued until it felt like every other day and noah almost forgot they were alone in the older boy’s apartment altogether.

noah wasn’t usually this bad at fifa, he actually held his own pretty well. but haydn seemed to take great joy in his wins and noah didn’t want to do a thing in the world to take the smile off the boy’s face.

they both seemed to lose track of time after a while. noah had planned on going home, he only lived a few blocks down. he’d never intended to stay over, but apparently haydn had come to that conclusion some time ago.

“okay, well it’s officially too late for this,” haydn motioned at the TV, “to still be going on, especially with how much you suck” noah scoffed, “and we have practice early again,” haydn stood, stretched, and noah watched the muscles under the thin material of his shirt in awe. “so sleep?” he turned back to noah, who quickly dropped his gaze to the couch. but then back to haydn in slight confusion. “sleep here?”

the corner of haydn’s mouth quirked up in amusement, “i mean, you’re welcome to sleep in the hall, but i didn’t think that’d make me a very good host.” noah couldn’t help his grin. he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, “okay then, couch. thanks-”

“no, not couch,” haydn stepped forward, nudged noah’s leg with his own in a soft kick. “up.” noah stood, and haydn didn’t move back, leaving them separated by minimal space. noah hadn’t realized until now that there actually was quite a bit of difference in their heights.

he’d always thought of himself as a rather tall guy, and he was, but haydn had a few inches on him. noah swallowed slowly. that was an interesting fact to reflect on later.

haydn switched the TV off and tossed the remote onto the cushion behind him. “you get the bed – i mean it, i’m taking this host thing seriously.” noah didn’t think anyone else could get away with pairing the word _seriously_ with a laugh like that.

“i can’t take your _bed_ ,” noah answered incredulously, earning a smirk from haydn that sent something hot and electric down his spine. “you’re taking my bed, go.”

well alrighty then. noah wasn’t going to argue with that kind of command, not that he could if he wanted to, as stubborn as haydn was when he wanted something. but the way haydn looked down at him, not asked but _told_ him what to do, where to go… noah’s legs were weaker than they were a moment before. he wondered what else haydn might tell him to do if they were in the dark.

he stepped away from haydn and around the couch before he let his face show anything it shouldn’t. haydn was observant, he’d proven that much, but he still hadn’t managed to read everything written in noah just yet. noah wasn’t sure if he’d want to. especially with the thoughts he was having now, curse his lonely, sex-deprived mind. despite his age, he still had the brain of a 17-year-old most of the time.

haydn pointed him to the bedroom, past the couch and the chair in the corner to a door left ajar. noah followed his direction, nudged the door open with a shoe and slipped in, searched the wall for a light. he fumbled around in the dark for a moment before the light flicked on. he blinked, eyes adjusting. haydn stood in the doorway, arm stretched across noah to the switch. “sorry,” he breathed a laugh, let his arm fall, stepped out again as he yawned. noah’s gaze followed him back into the main room, to the couch, where he tossed a pillow to the opposite end and, in one smooth motion, pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it over the back of the couch. noah inhaled sharply and turned back to the bedroom, the bed, anything that wasn’t a shirtless haydn.

his attention did finally actually find the bed, and there he found an idea. “hey, haydn,” he called over his shoulder, eyes still on the bed. haydn answered from the couch, voice already laced with sleep, “yeah?”

noah cleared his throat, tried to sound genuine. “come on man, don’t take the couch,” he leaned against the doorframe. haydn sat up, and even hidden behind the back of the couch, the defined, broad set of his shoulders was noticeable. noah chose not to focus on that for the time being.

“i mean,” he shrugged, nodded back toward the bed, “your bed’s huge. i feel bad, taking it up.”

of course, at that, haydn had to raise an eyebrow, smirk. noah bit his tongue.

“you wanna share?”

noah shifted his weight uneasily, “yeah, it’s your bed, i mean…” he shrugged again, made himself laugh. there were no other words to finish the thought without being redundant.

“okay then,” haydn surprised him with the abrupt agreement, swung his legs off the couch and stood, didn’t bother to reclaim his shirt before striding over to the doorway. noah stepped, nearly stumbled, back to let him enter. haydn moved past, clicked on a bedside lamp, and nodded in noah’s direction. noah just blinked at his back. haydn might not have had perfect skin where most could see, but his back was flawless.

haydn glanced back at him, snickered, “the light, hanny.”

“oh, right,” he flipped the switch and kicked the door shut, was grateful for the dim lighting as he made his way to the other side of the bed, heat rising to his face.

haydn was already lying down, covers draped low across his torso, down to the sharp bones of his hips. noah kept his eyes trained on the blankets on his own side, slid into bed beside his teammate.

haydn was scrolling through something on his phone, which left noah free to silently watch the slow rise and fall of his chest. blankets tugged up over his chin and haydn at his side, he felt a safe kind of peace. he always imagined the different ways he might end up in haydn’s bed, but he’d never really envisioned it being so tame. never imagined it’d be a form of solace.

haydn shifted and dropped his phone onto the nightstand, jerking noah out of his thoughts. he switched off the lamp and noah was left blindly listening to haydn shift around and readjust. he wondered if they were facing each other. “night,” he whispered.

haydn’s response came with another yawn, and silence followed, broken only by the sound of their breathing. noah remembered the times haydn let him just sit there and listen on the phone for so long, how he’d always wondered what it’d be like to experience that in person. and it was hard to believe this was that, that he got what he wanted.

so he lay there, still as possible, breathing soft and quiet so that the only sound he heard would be the boy across the bed.

 

noah had experienced his fair share of failure in his nhl career. he remembered the first night their loss had rested on his shoulders, how the guys had given him pitying smiles and half-hearted shoulder pats, the quiet lies of _you did good, kid_ and _it wasn’t your fault_. that’d been one of the first times he genuinely wondered if he was cut out for this. wondered what he was doing here. he didn’t plan on voicing those thoughts, but haydn had gotten it out of him at 3am once everyone else was long gone. pulled his fears out little by little and then quelled them. he was better at that than noah could ever be. noah was always stumbling over his words trying to make others feel better, he was too awkward and unsure. but haydn never hesitated. noah knew it was because he was genuine. haydn had a heart for helping, for listening, for encouraging. and he was always there for it, without fail, after every single one of noah’s downfalls. he never let him carry the weight of a game on his own, no matter how much of it he deserved.

but tonight’s game was without a doubt one of noah’s worst. there were several factors, the entire team had been off from the start, fumbling and tripping over ice and air. but one of the more minor reasons was the way coach chewed almost every single one of them out the second they were away from the press. he must’ve yelled and plotted and critiqued for half an hour. elias and seb seemed to be the only ones to escape it directly, they’d managed to not be _complete idiots out there_. everyone else was slammed.

but noah had caught the worst of it. he'd stood in front of darling, blocked him for a split second to shove some opposing player out of the way, a redwing whose name he'd forgotten long after the goal. he didn’t know why, he wasn’t usually so absent-minded, on the ice anyway. and peters didn’t hesitate to tell him so, that he didn’t know what was wrong with him lately, that noah seemed bored. _and if you’re bored, maybe we need to get someone a little more alert in here. maybe you need to pay charlotte a visit. honestly, hanifin, I expect more out of you young guys–_ he’d stopped paying attention halfway through, it was all the same thing. he’d screwed up, he knew why, he didn’t need the gory details.

either coach got tired of laying into him or he realized the defenseman wasn’t listening anymore, but whatever the reason, he eventually wrapped it up and all but told noah to get out of his sight.

haydn had watched as his teammates filtered out of the locker room, all except noah. noah, who followed coach to his office without so much as a look over his shoulder at the older boy. haydn decided to hang around, wait at least a few minutes. his friend was probably currently being told off for every wrong move he’d made, and probably ones he hadn’t. haydn gritted his teeth, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, studied the floor. should he wait, would noah even want any company right now?

he’d nearly talked himself out of sticking around when he heard steps in the hall. slow, heavy. a second later, noah appeared in the doorway and glanced up with tired eyes. blank eyes.

haydn swallowed. “hey.”

noah didn’t respond. just crossed the few feet separating them and pressed himself into haydn. haydn stepped back to brace himself, taken aback slightly by the younger boy’s blatant show of affection. he both wanted to know what exactly had been said to noah to make him need this, and didn’t want a single detail.

he lifted his arms to encircle noah, the boy’s slightly smaller frame immediately shifting closer into his embrace, head falling to his shoulder, arms tucked between them. haydn only tightened his grip around noah’s waist, let him stand there, let him find some comfort after the night they’d had.

a few moments passed like that, no words exchanged between the two. haydn knew noah probably wouldn’t want to be alone tonight. it was possible they’d need a repeat of the week before, finding solace in each other’s company alone, surrounded by silence.

“noah?” he kept his voice soft, didn’t want to startle noah.

“please,” came the quiet response, muffled by haydn’s shoulder.

haydn blinked down at noah, studied the shape of his shoulder. "what?"

"please can we not..." noah lifted his head, nose grazing haydn’s cheek. haydn stayed frozen, noah still held to his chest. he swallowed hard. "not what? what is it?"

"not talk, can we please,” he leaned into haydn, forehead resting against the older boy’s temple, nose pressed against his cheek. “just not talk…” haydn’s pulse quickened. what was he doing?

“i…” he couldn’t find his words, didn’t know what words fit _this_ , whatever this was. noah exhaled, his breath fanning across haydn’s collarbones, a long shaky sigh. haydn couldn’t identify any of the thoughts or feelings darting through his mind at top speed right now.

noah shook his head slightly, “it’s too much,” voice barely above a whisper. haydn didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t for noah to pull away for a second only to reappear against haydn’s lips.

haydn stood still, eyes falling closed in habit but hands frozen at noah’s back, noah’s climbing, slipping from their spot between them up to rest on haydn’s shoulders. noah’s lips were cold, _noah_ was cold, why had haydn never realized how cold it was here at night?

only a few seconds passed before haydn realized, honestly _realized_ what he was doing, what noah was doing. he was standing here, in the locker room, his best friend in his arms, _kissing_ him. he supposed it was noah doing the majority of the kissing, but haydn hadn’t pulled away yet. he didn’t know how, he didn’t know what to do.

he felt like noah had given him so many pieces, tiny brittle pieces of himself, over all this time. given them to haydn to hold, to learn, to keep. and haydn didn’t want to be the one who dropped them all back down at noah’s feet with this one moment.

haydn had never been a fan of labels, never knew what to call himself. he’d messed around, he’d experimented, he’d always been a firm believer in _never know til you try_. and kissing guys was not something he’d regretted trying.

but noah? the one friend he had here, the one person he’d believed he could stick with in this place he felt so lost in? he didn’t know how to redirect that thinking. he didn’t know how to want that.

haydn leaned back slightly out of noah’s reach, whispered the younger boy’s name. his eyes opened to noah’s, so much closer than he’d ever considered being to them. they held hope, relief, and haydn knew those were his fault.

noah’s eyes were a beautiful blue. noah was beautiful, he’d never deny that. he’d noticed that the first day he saw him in the locker room, staring at nothing with fear practically spelled out across his face. the beautiful lost boy. but haydn had never made him more than that, at least not in the way noah wanted him to. if for nothing more than to remedy this moment and what was to follow, he wished he had.

but the things noah saw in color, haydn had only ever viewed in black and white. this was his teammate, his best friend. his throat felt tight and stung, he couldn’t understand why noah was doing this, feeling this.

“noah, what are we doing?” still a whisper, he didn’t trust his voice.

noah blinked at him, fingers tightening their grip on his hoodie. he gnawed at his bottom lip, eyes still trained on haydn. “i don’t know.” his voice was so small and yet it slammed into haydn full force.

anger pricked at his eyes, why did such a good thing have to lead to this? why couldn’t he have simply comforted his teammate and stopped it there, why couldn’t they have gone home and watched bad sitcoms until they were too tired to keep picking them apart? these things weren’t fair, this whole night wasn’t fair. he dropped his gaze to noah’s t-shirt, studied the fabric.

“i thought-” noah’s eyes fixed on the stall behind him, haydn couldn’t remember whose locker they were currently blocking. “i thought you-”

“i don’t.” haydn’s voice came sharper than he intended and noah jumped. he turned his face from noah altogether, focused his attention on the open locker room doors. he didn’t think anyone was still here, prayed they were all gone. he softened his tone, “i didn’t know you did.” noah shook in his arms, and haydn told himself it was from the cold. he dropped them, let them fall by his sides. he felt the sting of his own actions as if he were the boy in front of him.

noah’s hands slipped from his shoulders, and haydn could still feel the weight of his gaze. he shoved his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t feel their emptiness. “can we talk about this?”

noah stood there a moment before he stepped back carefully, craned his neck to look behind him. he knelt to collect his bag from the ground, fumbled with a zipper and threw it over his shoulder. “i told you,” he murmured, voice too steady, too calm, “don’t wanna talk,” and walked out.

walked out like nothing happened. haydn expected him to all but run away, or maybe drag his feet and show hurt, hesitation. but it was as if haydn hadn’t done a thing. hadn’t just completely flat out rejected him.

haydn watched after him for too long, how long he didn’t know but he stood there until his phone buzzed with a text, probably from his mom, attempting to console him about the game. if she was texting, she figured he’d been home for a while now. was it that late?

he didn’t bother to check the time, just grabbed his own belongings and stalked out of the locker room, the thought of staying in this arena a moment longer than he had to setting his bones on edge.

once he hit cold night air, he felt like he could breathe again. the weight of what he’d just ruined dissipated, if only temporarily. he fumbled with his keys at his car door, mind a mess.

once he’d finally slammed the door after him and put the deserted parking lot behind him, he let himself reply the last 30 minutes of this night. over and over, until nausea clawed at his throat. he slammed his brakes.

haydn was thankful the road was empty as he knelt beside his car, hand braced on the hood, and heaved what little he had. he’d have eaten something by now, all his energy left out on the ice and in need of something besides gatorade.

he dropped back onto the ground, watched the moths dart clumsily around in the beams of his headlights. he knew he couldn’t take the blame on this. he couldn’t have just lied, let noah think he felt that way. he did what anyone would’ve done, it was what he owed noah.

haydn stretched out his legs, slumped against his bumper. had he done this, though? had he given some kind of vibe, sent some sort of message that he didn’t catch? he had always prided himself on being a caring individual, on being affectionate. he’d never imagined it would be a bad thing.

but noah didn’t live like that. from what he knew, noah didn’t have that before now. no one showed that kind of affection without a reason, no one cared for the sake of caring. it was either because they were family or because they wanted something in return. that was the way noah told it, anyway. and seeing noah interact with his family the few times they’d visited raleigh, nice as they were, haydn could believe it.

but what was haydn supposed to do? not be himself? not listen to the aching in his heart telling him to give the poor boy the kind of friendship, the kind of compassion, he’d clearly never been shown? he wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel. how had they gotten here? and how had he not seen it?

all he had were questions and not a single answer. his head hurt. everywhere hurt. he hadn’t even been anywhere near a fight tonight, and it felt like he’d been pummeled.

he pulled himself up and drove the rest of the way back to his apartment, where there was nobody and nothing. and without noah, just like before, that was probably how it would stay.

 

sometimes noah forgot that this team was not entirely a team. they were a collection of athletes who, yes, had each other’s back in the midst of a game, relied on each other, fed off each other’s energy and skill, spent nearly every waking minute of game days together, knew each other, bonded, grew close – but still, at the end of the day, had their own interests at heart. and they all knew that. no matter how friendly things were, no matter how good of terms they were on, everyone on this team knew that. the point of being in a sport was to better yourself and your career, teams were stepping stones, his dad had told him that once. he could love his team and play his heart out for them, but when the better opportunity for _him_ came along, he had to take it.

he knew that. they all did.

but it still hurt when haydn took it. and noah didn’t have any reason or right to be hurt over that, they weren’t what they used to be. and it’s not like it was his choice. but there was some part of noah that couldn’t help but feel like haydn was just waiting for an out.

once the trade was finalized, he cleared out his locker and his apartment and skipped town in under a day. noah never even got a goodbye. he supposed that was his own fault. haydn wasn’t cruel. if noah had made the effort to remain friends, haydn would’ve let him in a heartbeat. he couldn’t put this all on the older boy. in fact, he probably couldn’t peg any of it on him. he’d reacted exactly the way noah expected, or at least one of the ways he’d previously envisioned that didn’t end in perfect bliss. at least reality hadn’t followed the trend of haydn being repulsed, quitting the team, leaving the country, and changing his name. at least that would’ve been worse.

noah had to take comfort in that, that there could be something worse. which was utterly pathetic but it was all he had.

though sebastian still wouldn’t bring anything specific up, noah knew he knew. maybe not everything, but enough. so when he asked noah for the fifth time that week to go out with him and teuvo, maybe brett, jaccob, a couple other guys, noah gave in. he couldn’t just sit alone all the time. he couldn’t escape his life, his team, his career, over one boy.

even mentally reducing him to _one boy_ hurt more than he cared to admit. because the truth was, no matter how insignificant this whole thing was, would be in five years, ten… no matter how anticlimactic this had been, no matter how quickly it had all risen and fallen… haydn would never be just one boy. and noah would never be the kind of guy to forget about the first person who’d gotten him to feel something. feel _things_ , more than just something small.

but that chapter had closed. if noah could pick the most important lesson haydn had given him before everything came crashing down around them, it was the fact that his life was not the single sad story he always imagined it to be. it was a collection of chapters, and this one was not the last. haydn wasn’t the kind to sugarcoat. he was a sweet kid, but he was honest.

 _you feel sorry for yourself_ , he’d say. _why?_

noah never knew how to answer that. _you tell me_.

 _okay, easy_ , he’d say, fire in his eyes, _you think everyone’s out to get you. you think your life is miserable, you think you’re a walking sob story. but you’re not._ haydn would look him dead in the eyes, make him stare back, _you are a professional hockey player. you’re what you set out to be, which is more than most people, most 20-year-old kids, can say. do you ever think about that? that everything you ever lived through growing up – you lived through it? and now it’s over? you have a completely new life now, one that they can’t take away from you. but_ you _can._

noah would never forget that speech he always gave him. not if he tried. _if you wanna keep looking at yourself, at all this, like it’s just a tiny piece of a big heartbreaking, poor-noah-hanifin picture, be my guest._

haydn would lean in, and noah’s heart would always constrict at the tiny movement. _but if you want to live your life, really live it, the way i know you deserve to – if you wanna_ be _noah hanifin, NHL player, if you wanna be my_ friend _noah hanifin who’s worked with all he had to get to where he is, if you wanna keep starting new things in new places – you’ll stop holding onto that. and you’ll realize it isn’t who you are. and it isn’t_ where _you are, not anymore._ haydn would let out a long sigh, look down at his hands. _keep the lessons, not the hurt. keep what you need and let the rest stay behind, okay? you deserve that much._ it’d always sounded better in person than in his head, but it was still true all the same.

so no. this wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened. noah wasn’t some walking heartbreak, and he wasn’t lost love, and he wasn’t all fears and worries. he was just him. he had other places to go and things to become and he couldn’t keep walking backwards to revisit the things he’d lost.

he didn’t think he’d ever really talk about what happened. if anything, he might owe the story to seb one day. but for now, he could hold it, hold all of haydn’s words, the ones that never did anything but push him forward, and keep them quietly for himself. if haydn would want anything, it’d be that. but more important, it was what noah wanted. needed.

so he could do this. keep haydn as the encouraging teammate noah had been lucky to have in his corner, and move on from the heartache that clung to the memory of him. be who he needed to be right now, and keep what he needed to be it. he’d leave the boy, and take the strength he gave him.

and for now, that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as something very different from what it ended as, which you can probably tell. initially, this was supposed to be  
> a super quick vent fic, but one that was supposed to lead to a cute, fluffy, perfect ending. I honestly have no idea what happened. this went from an emotional short love story to the written embodiment of failed infatuation and ??? it's still a vent fic but just on a way larger, deeper scale than I intended and I'm sorry for projecting all my rad ~hurt~ onto poor noah. but even if it made you angry, I hope you still liked it and it made you feel something. I also didn't plan on it ending that way, even after I came to the conclusion that it was going to take the turn it did. but I think, considering this is a vent fic, noah finding strength was important for me to write for certain reasons, and hopefully it meant something to you as well. but overall, this was a trash fic and if you made it to this end note, thank you *finger guns*


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